


My Favorite Sin

by LT_Aldo_Raine



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Canon Compliant, Divorce, Falling In Love, Feelings, M/M, Post-War, War, basically Nix has feelings and doesn't know what the hell to do about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 18:44:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14526819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LT_Aldo_Raine/pseuds/LT_Aldo_Raine
Summary: The end of the war came and went. Nevertheless, Lewis Nixon continued to be utterly consumed by Dick Winters.“I'm surprised you still want me around.""What can I say, Dick? Gluttony's always been my favorite sin.”OR: Lew gets divorced and cares more about losing his dog than he does his wife. He realizes he might not be in love with Kathy anymore because he's in love with someone else. A certain pale redhead, perhaps? And just what the hell is he supposed to do about that?





	My Favorite Sin

**Author's Note:**

> I've just had a lot of feelings about Winnix lately.

When Lewis told people that he was more upset about Kathy taking the dog than he was the divorce itself, their gazes usually turned pitying, as if they didn't believe him. Like he was only saying it as a defense mechanism against the miserable turn his life had taken. Only, he wasn't. Lew _wa_ _s_ genuinely more upset about losing his dog, and damnit if that wasn't the goddamn problem in the first place.

Lew knew long ago that his marriage was over. This epiphany came right around the same time that he realized his thoughts about Life After the War didn't include kids or Kathy or a house in the Hamptons. Instead, he thought about Dick. In his down time, chain smoking cigarettes and trying not to freeze his ass off in those goddamn woods, Lew dreamt of taking Dick to Chicago, and making sure Dick had a job waiting for him at his old man's company, if he wanted, and wondering just when he was finally going to get Dick to crack and have a drink with him—the day the war ended, maybe? one could hope—. Soon, all of his musing were focused on a particular fair-skinned, redhead, so much so that at times Lew even forgot he _had_ a wife.

It wasn't that he thought about Dick romantically. He didn't imagine them having candle lit dinners together and curling up in front of a stone hearth with a roaring fire. And he absolutely did not think about Dick sexually. There were few things in life that Lew—even then, even in war, even afraid for his life and cold and wet and miserable—could appreciate more than the soft, smooth curves of a woman's body. By contrast, surveying Dick's pale, scrawny frame did nothing to stir desire low in Lew's belly.

And yet.

At some point, Lew could no longer think about his life after the war—and certainly not _during_ the war—without Dick being a prominent feature in the narrative.

If he thought about it for too long, the entire situation became problematic and he'd spend the rest of the day with a harrowing migraine, complete with an actual throbbing in his temples. So, he tried his damnedest not to think about it. Lew was a master at controlling his own thoughts, especially with the assistance of a bottle of Vat 69, but there wasn't a damn thing to be done about not _feeling_ them. He felt the warmth of Dick's side pressed intimately, desperately into his own as they shivered together in a foxhole tucked away in the frozen, hellish tundra of Bastogne. He felt the corners of his mouth twitching upward in equal parts amusement and affection whenever Dick would blouse his trousers or shave his face—because nobody but Dick gave a damn about keeping up appearances out there on the line. He felt surprise and pride when, in Haguenau, Dick refused to send his men back across the river on Strayer's orders; they were too damn close to ending this thing for another one of their men to die just so Strayer could impress the rest of the top brass. He felt the press of Dick's fingertips on his elbow, his shoulder, his back, as Dick sought his attention for something, or was simply craving a friendly, familiar touch. He felt dizzy at the brush of Dick's breath against his ear as Dick leaned in to share a private joke or quietly discuss troop movements and battle logistics.

Lewis felt a lot of things for and about Dick Winters.

With time and sweat and blood—and Lew's many, somewhat repressed thoughts and feelings, of course—, the end of the war came and went. Unsurprisingly, Lew was nevertheless utterly consumed by Dick.

“I'm surprised you still want me around,” muttered Dick, his face earnest, but his eyes playful. “Didn't you get enough of me over there?”

Lew hid a smile behind his coffee mug. Leaning against his father's desk as they waited for Stanhope Nixon to join them for Dick's welcoming interview, Lew attempted a casual shrug. “Guess not. What can I say, Dick? Gluttony's always been my favorite sin.”

Though Dick continued to smirk, his gaze turned sincere and affectionate, and the weight of it felt heavy on Lew's stomach. Dick nudged Lew's foot with his own. It was a swift movement, an utterly impish one that no one else would have seen or thought twice about. But for Lew, it sent a giddy tingle through his body and planted a fat grin on his face. He had to wonder if Dick knew what he was doing to Lew. Surely, he did.

“Thanks for keeping me around, Lew.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to confess that he kept Dick around for entirely selfish reasons. That his wife left him because he cared more about Dick's future than the future of their marriage. He didn't say that he couldn't live without Dick because at the end of the day Dick made Lew want to be a better person. He could lose Kathy, lose the dog and the house and the picket fence and the All American Dream, but to lose Dick would be to lose the person he wants to be.

And Lewis refused to give that up.

Dark eyes met soft, blue ones. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

 

 


End file.
